"POPPLE"

ANOTHER ASPEN IN WINTER...

BIG TOOTH ASPEN (POPULUS GRANDINDENTATA)

A GROVE OF TREMBLING ASPEN (POPULUS TREMULOIDES)

BIG -TOTHED ASPEN

TREMBLING ASPEN

PAPER BIRCH

Tuesday,  9:00 AM.  -8 degrees, wind SSW, light.  The sky is clear, the humidity 77%, and the barometer high and steady at 30.47".  We have gotten so used to the cold that well bellow zero in sunshine and no wind is almost balmy.
   In Sunday's post I talked about the similarities between the white bark of paper birch and the often white bark of trembling aspen, which can be confusing, especially in the winter.  On the way to Duluth yesterday I was constantly reminded of another aspen which has a more gray, often yellowish or greenish bark when young, the large-toothed aspen, Populus grandindentanta.  It pretty much occupies the same range and habitat as the trembling aspen and birch in Wisconsin, and they all often grow together.  Big-toothed aspen is not as easily confused with paper birch.  Both the aspens have leaves with flattened petioles, which allow the leaves to move constantly in the wind.  The trembling aspen is the most widely distributed tree species in North America, from northern Canada to Mexico, and coast to coast.  The big-toothed aspen is native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S.  The latter is more often found on drier sites than the former.
   In the Northland, P. tremuloides and P. grandindentata are often lumped together under the general common name of "popple."  The two species of poplar make up a huge percentage of the woody biomass harvested for paper and particle board production (with birch and other species included in the mix).